Miscellaneous One Shot Crossover Collection
by Aldrian Kyrrith
Summary: In one universe, Taylor Hebert got the ability to control bugs. But when was it ever presaged that she had to?
1. Forbidden Knowledge (Worm x Lovecraft)

Forbidden Knowledge

A Worm/Lovecraft Crossover

I was trapped inside that locker and the walls closed in. Covered in filth, the rancid smell of fermented blood and dry vomit assaulted my senses. I did not know at the time how long I was trapped in there. Days afterward, lying in a hospital bed, I was told that it had only been a few hours but at the time, overwhelmed by panic and despair, it felt like an eternity.

What was it like in that moment? I was angry, desperate to get out. I cried, called for help until my throat was raw and voice was hoarse. Still, no one came, and as time lingered, surrounded in the confines of the locker, I despaired. In retrospect I know now that those thoughts may have been a tad melodramatic. But in the bottom of my heart, there was the faint suspicion that I might die there.

So yes: I desperately wanted to get out. In a perfect world, someone would have come. Perhaps one of the students would have stood up to Sophia and Emma and released me no matter the consequences. I used to think that people were inherently good, that heroism was real, in such a silly cliché that there is still hope in the world. No one came.

At some point, the desire to escape became overwhelmed by an even deeper desire to understand. Of everyone at Winslow, Sophia had singled me out. True, I don't doubt she targeted others among my classmates, but the extremes to which she brought herself on that day… why would she do this to me? Why would she do this to anyone? And Emma. Emma had been my friend. Hell, she had been my only friend. What had I done to her that deserved such cruelty? Had I betrayed her some way? Was all this my fault?

Deep down, a single desire reverberated in my psyche: I didn't want to escape so much as I wanted to know; to understand. Why is the world the way it is? Why do friends betray friends, why do the Endbringers attack, why do millions around the world suffer in silence, dying in anonymity, squalor and despair? I wanted to know everything, and I wanted it so desperately. And as that desire, that need, crystallized in my head, I caught a glimmer, an image of a dance: of two vast creatures together in the void. And in that moment, seeing them dance, I saw something beyond, hidden in the vastness of space, embedded within the very tapestry of the universe itself.

Do not ask me to describe what I saw, for there are some things human beings are not meant to know; there are some things they should not have to know, and there are images that will be burned in my memory until I die.

You label me insane. Psychotic. Maybe schizophrenic as well. One hundred years ago, you would have locked me up in an asylum and thrown away the key. I can tell you though, that even though I am broken, I will freely admit that much, you can't help me. What I have come to know, what I wished to understand, is horror beyond the Endbringers themselves. You look at me when I say this, the skepticism is obvious on your face, and you ask me questions, trying to pry further answers, to understand what you believe to be delusions.

Fine, I will speak, though I do not expect you to understand. At that moment, in the locker, watching that dance in the heavens, I caught a glimpse of something behind it: something incomprehensibly vast lurking in the depths of the universe. And it was not alone.

Horrors are sleeping in the hidden depths of reality, waiting for the stars to align. And whoever is unfortunate enough to live in that time will be devoured. They have slept for millions, perhaps even billions, of years in secret places across this world, and every other world, and when they awaken… Let me put it this way: Leviathan, Simurgh, even the Great Beasts in the Ether: they will all be but prey. Food for horrors that will run rampant across the universe, reclaiming what was once theirs. What hope will humanity have when that moment comes, when we can barely hold off the Endbringers as it is? How will we hold off that flood, when we can barely keep the insects at bay? Or perhaps we will have been wiped out long before that point comes. Honestly, that would be the more merciful option.

You look at me, a glimmer of skepticism in your eyes. Don't bother denying it, I did not expect you to believe me. How could you? You weren't there. You didn't see what I saw. F %k, I wish I didn't see what I saw. The subject laughs bitterly In all honesty, I wish that was the worst that I knew. I asked for understanding, remember, for knowledge, but the Great Old Ones sleeping away for eons, waiting to rise and rampage, that's not really an answer, is it? Not to the questions I asked anyway. It's just a confirmation that civilization is damned, one way or another.

In itself, that would have been overwhelming. But it wasn't what broke me. That wasn't the worst thing that I saw… The subject is silent for a moment, apparently gathering herself, suddenly hesitant and afraid I beheld the face of God, the mind of the Creator, and in that moment it all made sense. Why the world is such a hellhole.

People have the underlying assumption that God is good, but look at this world and tell me: do you honestly believe that's true? The reality is, the cold unyielding truth that I learned: God is a lunatic, a petty creature of unlimited power that created the universe on a whim, without even realizing it, focused so much as It is on Its own petty entertainments, like a child kicking down anthills. That's all we are. Momentary diversions for a drooling idiot, if It cares to note us at all.

Perhaps that doesn't sound so terrible to you. Philosophers have discussed such matters in theory after all. Maybe you'd find the idea unpalatable, but hardly something to inspire madness. Then again, you didn't see what I saw. You didn't hear what I heard. The cacophony, the insanity, the warped depravity of it all: you can't possibly comprehend something of that scale, and I can't adequately explain it. There are no words in the human vocabulary that could describe the sheer awesome horror of such things.

You look at me with such concern, as you take down a record of our session. Perhaps as you set about recording this entire conversation, or at least my half of it. Don't bother lying to me: you don't believe me. I wouldn't either, were I you. I'm not asking you to, but you wish to understand what you believe to be my delusions. You think you can help me, somehow restore my sanity, make me fit to reintegrate into society, but you can't. Honestly, Taylor Hebert died in that locker, and I'm all that remains of her. I am past saving. So please, stop these interviews. Stop trying to know, to understand, to help.

You'll be happier being ignorant. I know I was.


	2. The Hunger Birds (Worm x Neil Gaiman)

The Hunger Birds

A Crossover between Worm &amp; Neil Gaiman's _The Ocean at the End of the Lane_.

One day, not so different from any other day, Cauldron took note of a most unusual scene: Scion, the Golden Man, the enemy of the world, had frozen mid flight with its face etched in a parody of terror. It was only a moment before he was once again on the move, headed towards the next emergency, but it was a momentous realization, and Doctor Mother was chilled by its implications.

Scion was afraid. What could that possibly mean?

LLLLL

Taylor Hebert kept her head down as she walked, trying her best to ignore the voices: those skittering, crawling, crying, screaming whispers that besieged her mind. It was a continuous onslaught which seemed destined to drive her mad, and it required all of her concentration and willpower just to keep her sanity in check.

The nightmare had started so long ago, back when Sophia had first shoved her in that locker. Trapped beneath the festering wastes, she had begged for help, and, somehow, her calls had been answered, though not in the manner she would have wished. She had first started hearing those voices in that moment, trapped and helpless and utterly desperate: voices that sounded like nails scratching on a chalkboard, like cannon fire, and like the harsh winds of a winter's gale. There was nothing human in those voices and they spoke to her endlessly, relentlessly, ever since.

"We have our responsibilities," the voices, simultaneously one and a thousand coaxed, demanded, whispered and screamed into her dreams. "And so do you. This world is broken. Contaminated. Release us, to set things right."

"We hunger," the voices called from the darkness around her. "Let us out so we might feed."

"You are in pain, agony. Human minds cannot contract with those such as Us. Let us out, so that you would know peace."

Every night, in her dreams, Taylor faced that unfathomable shadow, those inhuman voices begging, pleading, demanding, wheedling, insisting and threatening her all at once. Every night, she refused, and every morning, her conviction grew just a little bit weaker, and those voices became just a little more convincing.

LLLLL

Taylor Hebert stalked through Winslow High School, as if in a daze. Her grades had plummeted and whenever teachers would call on her, they would only receive a glassy eyed stare and an occasional pithy comment devoid of enthusiasm.

Madison, Sophia and Emma continued their bullying campaign: they set glue on her seat and poured juice down her hair. They inundated her with cruel japes and revealed her most closely guarded secrets for all to hear. Yet no matter what they did, no matter what torments they deigned to unleash, Taylor Hebert never showed the slightest response. Once their cruelties defined her life, but now all of Taylor's energies were spent resisting the voices.

"Is this world truly worth protecting?" the voices insisted. "A world with people such as Emma? A world with people such as Jack Slash? A world with endbringers? It is a broken world, you must admit. Let us fix it. Set things back in order. That is what we do. Do you not wish to fix the world?"

It was then her mother's voice that spoke to her, cutting through her fogged mind. "Please Taylor, don't allow yourself to keep suffering like this. They're too strong, and eventually they'll destroy you. Just give in. No one would think less of you for it."

"You're not my mother," Taylor insisted, and for the first time in a long time, her deadened eyes showed a spark of real intensity. "Tempt me, threaten me, scream at me if you will, but don't you fucking dare degrade her memory."

"Very well," the voices agreed. "But you weaken. You cannot hold out much longer. Soon you will free us."

"Perhaps, but not today, and not now."

LLLLL

Danny Hebert noted his daughter's increasing reticence, her growing isolation from the world. It had begun with the locker incident, and with each day Taylor was looking just a bit more depleted. She ate little, she slept little, and she spoke hardly at all. Danny was afraid: he was losing his daughter and, while he tried to intervene, tried to talk with her, and at one point, he even attempted to get her some professional counseling. Nothing worked. She refused to speak with him about her troubles, to let him help her, to share her burden. He was at his wit's end, and he did not know what he could do when she so insisted upon suffering alone.

LLLLL

Weeks have passed since the locker incident, but for Taylor it feels more like years, more like centuries. Each morning, she finds herself feeling a bit more stretched and worn about the edges, and she knows that she has been brought to her breaking point. And the voices realize this as well, just as certainly as she does. Taylor tells herself that most minds would have broken long ago under so much pressure but this is little consolation. She only hopes that her fears are misplaced, and that things will turn out for the best. She knows that hope for the gentle lie it is.

And so the wheedling, the threats, the cries continue and her eyes cloud over with tears because what could she have possibly done to deserve this fate? Why was she, and she alone, chosen to hold back the apocalypse? And how could she have ever hoped to succeed in such an impossible task?

And then, her musings are interrupted, as the sirens blast through her despair and even the voices are momentarily silenced. Before she knows it, she is standing on the streets of Brockton Bay as an endbringer draws near. She stands there, her hair flying in the gale, her body pelted by the torrential downpour, paralyzed by rage and despair.

The streets are a sight of panic. She vaguely notes a hand on her shoulder, trying to drag her towards the nearest shelter, but she stands there, in silent refusal, and the grip relaxes as her would be rescuer moves on. With grim determination, she walks against the crowd, making her way towards the docks. If this is going to be her final day, she will meet it head on, and, though she does not know it, she is wearing a crazed smile, framed by a stream of rain and tears. She is just so tired of the struggle.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, she sees it: Leviathan. Vast and terrible and utterly wrong, it is toying with the capes. It lashes out with tidal waves and she knows deep down that her city, along with everyone she's ever known, will be annihilated. Brockton Bay will shortly join the ranks of Kyushu and Newfoundland: casualties to the endbringers.

"This is the world you wish to protect?" the voices whisper in her mind once more, and she feels her resistance crumble, just as surely as the city does around her. "Release us. Let us do our duty. Let us fix things."

She knows their words to be truth but, at the same time, she knows that their promise is not a benign one. They would fix the world, but they would do so by unmaking it. Yet she is so tired of fighting, and looking at the scene before her, she tells herself that the world is doomed anyway. The endbringers will win. At least this way, something might be salvaged from the rubble. The alternative is oblivion.

"Yes. Resistance is hopeless. Let us do our duty, and set things back in order."

Exhausted by the endless struggle, and embittered by its thankless reward, Taylor relents.

"I release you," she whispers, and she feels a light go out within her. "Come, and do what you will."

The invitation has been sent and the Hunger Birds take flight.

LLLLL

One moment, Alexandria is raining blows upon Leviathan, trying to herd it away from the city, back towards the ocean. The next, she is frozen, paralyzed by terror and indecision. At first she despairs, thinking that the endbringer has unleashed yet one more trick from its endless collection. Then, she realizes that the monster is just as paralyzed as she is. Its face points skywards, the battle seemingly forgotten. She follows its gaze, and her eyes lock with the maddening, indescribable horror taking root above.

A single shadowy shape was coalescing above the capes, comprised of a hundred, a thousand, or perhaps a million eldritch terrors which flocked above them, filling the skies. At first, she thinks they resembled birds, as black and unfathomable as a starless night, albeit featureless beyond that basic outline. She amends her initial observation: these creatures were nothing more than the base imitations of birds, or perhaps birds were little more than base imitations of them.

"We hunger," the creatures speak and, to her horror, Alexandria catches a glimpse of a thousand tentacled maws opening at once, eager to feast. She cannot tell whether there had been a single voice or ten or a thousand, just as she could not be certain whether it is a single creature or a multitude. This is something beyond endbringers, beyond Scion; something older and beyond human comprehension. She looks towards David, frozen with terror, his entire body beset by uncontrollable tremors, and she wonders, briefly and bemusedly, what the Number Man, or Contessa, would make of the scene.

And then, like a voracious flock of sea gulls, the creatures descend as one. They fall upon the endbringer, and upon the parahumans fighting it, merciless and pitiless as a hurricane. Alexandria feels her power torn away from her, and as her augmented mind begins to fade, she asks single question: _is this how it ends_?

She is unable to stop the Hunger Birds. They devour her, along with Leviathan and all the capes of Brockton Bay.

LLLLL

An insatiable hunger seemed to encompass the world, endless in size and scope, consuming everything in its path. Parahumans tried to resist, but they were powerless, for there are some things which cannot be fought. And the Hunger Birds swarmed, through this world, and through all others which had been touched by Scion and by Eden. And they fed. A golden man screamed in agony, and then, in a flash of light, vanished, to be seen no more.

And then they were gone, as instantaneously as they appeared. The world continued to turn, normality restored, free of the endbringers, free of the golden idol, and bereft of parahumans. It was as if they had never been, for no mortal being retained those memories and few held the slightest belief that such fantasies were even remotely possible.

Yet, forever on, all of humanity would share an inexplicable fear of the skies and of the dark, and in every city in every country across the Earth, people continued to report vivid dreams of an unfathomable shadow, a ravenous hunger, and the faint outline of birds.


	3. Look Upon My Works (Doctor Who)

**Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair**

**Crossover: Doctor Who**

Across a thousand universes, two entities danced in twine. They had been born in the muddied oceans of a small grey planet orbiting a dying star, galaxies and universes away. That star and that planet no longer exist; they haven't for millions of years. But the entities remain, and still they dance.

From one planet to another they traverse the heavens, expanding upon their knowledge of the cosmos in a ceaseless attempt to satiate an all encompassing hunger. With an explosion of energy, they fall upon other worlds, rich with life and civilization, and they watch and they learn and they plunder. A select few cultures have been fortunate enough to drive them off, and a still smaller handful has even survived the experience. Still, the cycle continues and, in a universe much too crowded for their liking, the entities hunger.

They collect knowledge as they go: they plunder the collective scientific knowledge from a million different worlds, stripping away all that is irrelevant and subjective so that only the data remains. That they keep.

And yet, on rare occasions, there are discrepancies within the cycle: exceptional circumstances which even they cannot predict.

Once, hundreds of cycles past, the Entities came across the ruins of a destroyed planet, its atmosphere a flaming inferno and its continents rent asunder. They had only recently selected it as an optimal harvesting ground. It had been home to a society whose recorded history extended more than ten millennia, and was on the precipice of mastering interstellar travel. There should have been billions of intelligent sapients there waiting to be harvested. They found none.

For a moment the entities despaired. Then they found the saucer shaped spacecraft. Left in orbit around the planet, the derelict vessel was largely undamaged. But it harbored technology which exceeded anything the Entities had ever seen and a knowledge base they could not even begin to comprehend.

The cycle continued, and the entities moved on to other worlds, but the saucer's scientific and cultural legacy they left intact. They understood too little to strip it down, to risk losing something vital. Perhaps one day, hundreds of thousands of years to come, the knowledge there would provide the solution they so desperately craved. Until then, they could only wait.

L

L

Ever since she had been dragged out of that locker, kicking and screaming with teary eyes and bloody knuckles, Taylor Hebert had changed.

She fell unconscious soon after her escape and, as she slept, she had the strangest vision: a thousand voices, enraged and hateful, all demanded that she act. That she do something terrible. They were not human voices either; they were mechanical, like they were produced out of a synthesizer of some kind. It was only a dream, she told herself the following morning. A strange, creepy one, but a dream nonetheless. It didn't mean anything.

It meant everything.

She spent two days in a hospital bed, where she was subjected to a full battery of antibiotics and every test the doctors could conceive. Luckily, they all came back clean. Handed a full bill of health, Taylor Hebert quickly found herself back in Winslow. She was more than a little bitter about it.

That morning began like any other as she approached the schoolyard, preparing herself for the worst. The trio hadn't broken her yet and, as terrible as they could be, she found it difficult to believe that even they could top what they had done with her locker. But then, on her way to first period, she caught Emma with a satisfied smirk on her face. In that moment, she felt a deep and terrible rage. She wanted to kill her. She _needed_ to kill her. Emma wasn't worthy to live. None of them were. They all needed to be exterminated. And she would do it. Clean and efficient. It would be so easy. All she needed to do was…

She startled, and sprinted into the nearest bathroom as fast as she could, where she locked herself in the nearest stall and threw up. She returned to the sinks, scrubbing her face as she tried to wrest back control of her thoughts.

"What the hell was that?" she demanded. She had never been a violent person before and, while she could cognitively understand that being stuffed in a locker would have some serious psychological effects on the victim, she did not want to turn a monster. But the truth was impossible to deny: a large part of her had wanted to kill them: the trio, the teachers, the other students. Everyone. And worst still, that bloodthirsty part of her honestly believed those murders would be more a service than a crime.

"Get a hold of yourself Taylor," she said with a shake of her head. "Just bite down and persevere: like you've always done. You'll get through this. Just as you've gotten through everything else."

_Because you're weak. Inferior_, a voice insisted from the corners of her mind, its voice a harsh staccato that sounded like a synthesizer. _You will be strong. And we will revive_. L L

Taylor had changed since the locker and it wasn't just the hatred, or that mechanical voice which only she could hear. She was smarter now than she had been before; so much smarter than she had ever believed possible.

After a few days, she stopped going to school altogether. She had noticed herself becoming colder, more calculating and more hateful with every second she spent in that place. And it wasn't just aimed at the Trio. She hated all of them: the teachers, the students, the janitors, the administrators, the nurses. Every single human being in Brockton Bay. And why shouldn't she? They were weak. Pathetic. Inferior. And it's not like she needed them anymore anyway.

She ran away from home as well. Under cover of darkness, unable to look her father in the eye, she packed her belongings and left. She couldn't risk what she might do to him once her self control slipped. It was only a matter of time, she knew, before that hatred subsumed her entirely, and she didn't want him there when it did.

She relocated to the Boat Graveyard and there she worked. Isolated, she was able to let her mind run wild and she lost herself in a creative frenzy. She drafted blueprints by the hundreds: ray guns and spaceship and bombs that could crack the planet in half.

She drew a strange mutated creature that looked kind of like the deformed husk of an octopus, resting within a metallic casing resembling a pepper pot. And as ridiculous as it looked, that pot shaped travel machine became her greatest obsession at all. She drafted its blueprints dozens of times over, trying to find the best way to usher its design into reality.

Imperfection was not an option.

L

L

Days turned into weeks turned into months. Taylor Hebert was named to the missing persons list but, in a city as troubled as Brockton Bay was, that didn't amount to much. The search was eventually called off, and she was presumed deceased: another victim in one of the endless gang wars which plagued the community.

And all that while, with a crazed look in her eye, Taylor continued her exertions. The first thing she built was a time dilation device. It was inelegant, she would admit, and she could think of a thousand ways to improve it: to make it run just a bit more effectively. But she ignored the urge to tinker. It was sufficient for her needs, and it gave her the time she needed to work uninterrupted. She had more important projects to pursue.

She never left her workspace except for the rare food run, and soon enough, she found ways to get around even those. Human biology was so inefficient, and Taylor could not accept that weakness. So she discarded it, just as she planned to discard everything weak and human about her former self. She would retain only was necessary to survive. She would be stronger. Superior.

Ceaselessly, she set about bringing her blueprints into reality. And all the while her masterpiece neared completion. Reverently, she caressed the near finished travel machine, a wide grin on her face. True: the wires were still exposed and the outer casing was only half done, but those details did not faze her. Soon she would mutate her body, and cast off her humanity altogether. She couldn't wait.

She got back to work.

L

L

Tattletale would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous. Hell, Lung was calling for blood and that was reason enough for any sane person to run the other way. And yet, she and the others had decided to dive right in the thick of things.

Yeah. It probably wasn't their best idea.

They were tense as the dogs, grown to the size of vans, approached ABB territory. It was quiet: eerily so. And her power was freaking out about something. She alerted the others but they all moved ahead anyway. They had come too far to turn back now.

The dogs seemed to sense something was off, and they slowed down, lowering their heads submissively and whimpering. Bitch had to force them forwards.

Yeah. So not a good plan.

A few minutes later, they came across the bodies, each one in ABB colors. There were dozens of corpses strewn haphazardly upon the pavement. They had died quickly, their faces frozen in terror or disbelief, but Tattletale could discern no cause of death. There were no bullet or knife wounds, no burns, not even any apparent signs of struggle. They were just dead. No explanation as to how.

She saw Oni Lee and Lung among the corpses.

"Guys," she spoke, breaking the disturbed silence. "We should get out of here. Now."

Grue nodded his agreement, but it was too late. Something descended from the rooftops, levitating down towards them and settling in the middle of the carnage.

It should have looked ridiculous, but it was the most terrifying thing Tattletale had ever seen, and not even Regent could bring it within himself to make jokes about its appearance. It was shaped like a pepper pot, silver and black, and it had landed right in the center of the massacre. Its cranial plating swiveled around, taking in its surroundings through a glowing eye stalk. It turned its eye upon them, and Tattletale found herself locked in its gaze.

It spoke to them in a shrieking, mechanical voice. "YOU. ARE. IN-TRUDERS."

Grue stepped forward to speak to… whatever the hell that thing was that had just eradicated the ABB. His pose was non-confrontational, but Tattletale's power told her that such gestures would be for naught. She kept her gaze riveted on the ABB's executioner and her power spun out of control. In an intense burst of insight the likes of which she had never imagined it even capable of, her power told her impossible things about impossible sciences and an impossible war which raged throughout the universe, across all of time and space. On a normal day she would have discarded those inductions as fantasies, but somehow, this time, she knew they were all too accurate.

Just as she knew that this creature, this nightmare of a thousand worlds, this _Dalek_, had only a single purpose to its existence. And there was nothing she could do, no single weakness, psychological or otherwise, she could exploit to save her team, or even just herself.

Something broke inside of her. "So this is how it ends? Gunned down by a pepper pot of all things."

"Tattletale?" Grue turned to her for an explanation. An answer. Anything. She turned and smiled at him, but it was brittle, and there were tears in her eyes.

The Dalek screeched, and she knew the end had come.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE."

L

L

a/n: While I intend to add to this collection over time, this will probably be the last chapter for the foreseeable future. Thank you to those who took the time reading these stories. Needless to say, I own none of the universes or characters in these stories.


	4. Taking Flight (animorphism-folklore)

A/N: Okay, so I'll admit, this one's not a crossover. Taylor gets a different power.

** Taking Flight**

Once there lived a girl, and she felt trapped and overwhelmed. And she was gifted with a most incredible power.

Now, Taylor never saw herself as somebody special, for all she lived in a world where a select few people could fly, or teleport, or push the boundaries of invention into the territory of a science fiction novel. She never realized that awesome potential which she had been gifted. Perhaps, in a different world, she may have been the catalyst for something amazing and tragic and terrible. Perhaps she could have become one of her world's greatest and most admired heroes, or most feared and terrible villains. Perhaps she could have been both and, perhaps, she could have saved them all.

But that would be a different story.

You see Taylor, for all she could have been, was a victim above all else. She had been betrayed by her closest friend, bullied and brought low, and for her suffering she could find no solace. For years, she trudged on, and with each day her world grew a little bit bleaker. And then came the day she broke, when they locked her in a metal cage, and left her to stew. Alone and forgotten.

She was trapped for hours, in that dank, metal box, and she cried and called for help, and she thought about how miserable and lonely and loathful her life had become. And as she despaired, she saw a most strange and wondrous apparition. And then, she felt something inside of her shift.

She was desperate for an escape, for the freedom to move, and then the world expanded all around her, until that tiny metal box became itself an entire world. She treaded across vast fields of fabric on six chitin legs, looking upon her world through many eyes. Then, with gossamer wings, she took flight, escaped her box, and found herself lost in an even greater vastness.

And something within her shifted again, and the world shrank back into place, and where there had been a tiny insect, there now stood a blood stained girl, who laughed and cried and collapsed inwards upon herself, trying to make sense of what had just become of her. She thought back on her life, back towards the bullies and the teachers who stood aside and the students who watched. She thought back to a distant father and a mother long dead. She thought about the future – of another four years of this, with nothing better to look forward to.

And she thought about that one brief but wondrous moment, where she was no longer Taylor Hebert. How freeing it was. How simple.

And for once, a smile broke out across her face because, for the first time in a long time, she had hope.

Taylor headed to the showers, cleansing herself of all that blood and decay, and of that hopeless child she once had been but would be no more. Then, finally pristine, or as pristine as she could make herself in the time she had, Taylor Hebert walked out of that place for the last time.

She arched her head upwards, taking in that sky, so vast and so clear, expanding into the horizon. And something shifted in her appearance, as her proportions shrank and her feet became talons and her arms became wings and her mouth a vicious beak. And then Taylor ruffled her feathers and took to the skies, leaving the vestiges of her human life far behind.

They found her clothes the following morning, with no trace of the girl who owned them.

The people of Brockton Bay never saw the girl-child Taylor Hebert again.

But on occasion, they would spot the passing of a great hawk which soared above the waves, always alone and majestic and free.

There once was a girl who suffered, but now that girl no longer exists. She hasn't for years. And she's all the happier for it.


	5. Alien Encounters (Dr Who meets Cauldron)

Alien Encounters (Worm x Doctor Who)

* * *

A/N: another special exception, as this fic doesn't feature Taylor at all... but I wanted to throw Cauldron a bit of an outside-context problem to deal with.

* * *

In his office the Number Man frowned, looking over the data feed once more. It was inexplicable, and it should have been impossible, but the readings were indisputable. Someone had managed to infiltrate Cauldron, and was at that very moment disabling the security overrides to the containment cells, trying to orchestrate a break out.

At his order, a gateway through space-time appeared before him and, in stepping through it, the Number Man crossed continents, and found himself behind the intruder. He had a revolver pointed at the man.

"Turn around and step aside, if you'd please," he ordered.

The man turned around, and while he wasn't what could be called conventionally handsome, his features were certainly memorable. Wild hair and big eyes, wearing a most ridiculous scarf around his neck that dragged across the floor, twenty feet in length. Quite impractical, but it certainly said something about the man that wore it.

"How wonderful!" the intruder exclaimed. "I didn't even see you come in."

"Funny," the Number Man replied deadpan. "Neither did I."

He frowned, studying the intruder intently. "You seem awfully calm about being held at gunpoint," he observed.

A third voice intruded upon the scene, "It wouldn't be the first time."

The Cauldron operative turned around, surprised to find a young girl with scraggly blonde hair and a taste in clothing just as bohemian as her counterpart. He hadn't even noticed her approach.

"Oh, let me do introductions," the man said while his back was turned. "I'm the doctor, that's Romana, and this is our kidnapper. Say hello to the nice man, Romana."

"Hello," she said, apparently dismissing the Number Man, for her attention seemed focused on the Doctor. "He doesn't look the most imaginative sort."

"He does give accountant vibes, I suppose," the Doctor admitted.

"Remember Paris? Now there was a villain with style. Even if I still say that Mona Lisa is dreadfully overrated."

The Doctor harrumphed, "We're not getting into that argument again."

The Number Man watched with detached fascination as his two _captives_ continued to bicker back and forth, ignoring his presence. No raised heartbeats, no signs of perspiration or tension in the face. Nothing to suggest even the slightest hints of anxiety.

And then there were the other things: the odd proportions of their bodies, with rib cages too broad and fingers ever so spread ever so slightly too far apart.

Double heart beats.

He interrupted their conversation, speaking in the same matter of fact tone other people would use to discuss the weather. "I do wonder what brings two extraterrestrials to this planet."

"Oh, you figured it out?" the doctor asked with a big grin, apparently delighted.

"It wasn't too hard an induction," the Number Man admitted. They were certainly not one of Cauldron's, and in any case, he clearly faced a male and female of the same species.

Agents certainly never worked in so conventional a fashion.

It was Romana who then spoke up, "What do you know? This one does have imagination after all."

"Romana," the Doctor said. "Be gracious. We're guests after all."

"I meant it as a compliment."

The Number Man reasserted control of the situation. "What are you doing here?"

The Doctor looked befuddled for a moment. "Here? I don't even know where here is. Do you, Romana?"

She shook her head.

"Forgive me if I don't believe you," the Number Man pointed out. "Not when you were disabling the security locks in our containment wards."

A wry smile crossed the Doctor's face, "You do know what they say. Prisons are awfully unkind places."

Romana chirped up, "Plus, the Doctor likes pressing buttons."

"Oh, certainly. Why, I've never met a button I didn't want to push."

"Tell me about it. You nearly crashed the TARDIS that last time…"

"Tardis?" the Number Man asked, mildly bemused. It wasn't often he was left so flummoxed, unable to effectively control the situation.

Not without killing the two at least.

"Time And Relative Dimension in Space," the female intoned. She looked at him expectantly, with a gaze that was suddenly intense. "Does that mean anything to you?"

Fascinating. Implications that these aliens had advanced knowledge in higher dimension physics. If they could be controlled, they could certainly become assets in Cauldron's design.

"Well," the Doctor intruded upon his pensive silence. "That's not a reaction I'm used to getting."

"It seems like he understands," Romana agreed.

"Your words have interesting connotations," the Number Man said. "I'd like to hear more about this TARDIS."

"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor pointed out. "Whenever I discuss the TARDIS with most people, I find they tend to get rather glassy eyed and confused."

"I'm not most people."

The Doctor paused, and it was Romana who spoke next. "He is the one holding the gun, Doctor."

The Number Man quirked a small smile. "It seems one of you has some sense after all."

"Delightful," the Doctor exclaimed, excited once more. "He has a sense of humor after all."

"Or I could just blow your brains out right now," the Number Man pointed out, still businesslike. He wouldn't really do so, of course. Not unless it became absolutely necessary. But it would be interesting to see how these two would respond to so blatant a threat to their lives.

"But you wouldn't though," Romana said, smirking smugly. "You'll want answers first."

The Number Man was silent, as he studied the pair before him, and they studied him.

He was impressed. They acted relaxed enough, but he had seen past the masks they wore. Always calculating, those two were. Running the numbers, continually judging their options and making contingencies, much like him.

They just hid it better.

Romana smiled, and there was something shark-like in it this time. "This one _is_ impressive. Most of your sort, I find, are far too self absorbed to figure us out."

"My sort?"

"Megalomaniacs," she answered.

The Number Man adjusted his glasses. "Obfuscation. Your favorite tactic, I would assume."

The Doctor seemed to deflate. "I see Romana was right. You have figured us out."

Another lie. He had it well, but the Number Man had decoded the strange pair's subtle body language, and could now get a read on them. Whatever he was playing at, the Doctor was, in truth, far from defeated.

But the Number Man was content to play along, and find out just what the man's game was.

"You did admirably," he admitted. "Nearly fooled me as well."

The Doctor shared a wide, toothy grin, intended to disarm. "Most are."

The Number Man repeated the same words he had spoken earlier in the conversation. "I'm not most people."

There was a tense silence, and then the Doctor voiced his surrender. "You intend to see the TARDIS for yourself."

"I intend to know what you are," the Number Man corrected. "How you came here, and what your purpose is."

"Then you'd need to see that TARDIS," the Doctor insisted.

It was a trap, and an obvious one at that, and the Doctor certainly knew that he was aware of it. Nevertheless, sometimes it was best to spring such traps, and Cauldron had never been an organization that eschewed risk. Sometimes they were worth taking, and in the Number Man's opinion, this was one of those times.

"Show me," he said.

The two aliens did. They took him up to a police box, a 1960's relic of the United Kingdom, and then they opened the door…

And the Number Man stepped into impossibility, where all the laws of mathematics as he knew them were discarded. His power went wild, trying to make some sense of this place, this small infinity cramped within so tiny a cage. Trying to figure it out.

He ran the numbers, but they didn't compute. Missing data. Needs additional input. He reran them once more, but still they didn't work. The Numbers didn't add up, and yet he could see them all around him, equations that didn't go together, yet did. Mathematics he couldn't understand, but still he tried, as he ran those numbers again and again, his brain trying to make sense of the data all around him, and of knowledge which fell far beyond the ken of human comprehension.

And then he saw a vision, as he triggered for a second time, and his power shorted out. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed on the floor, unconscious.

He didn't come to until six hours and thirty four minutes had passed, and by that time, the intruders were both gone, as were many of Cauldron's human resources. But it wasn't too much of a loss, all things considered.

He ran the mathematics in his head, finding his power now worked faster, more efficiently, that he could carry the calculations so much further, and that he could now run a near countless number of them all at once.

And he had no doubt that, with time, he could get it to do so much more as well.

It would take him time to figure out the full scope of his new abilities but this… this could be useful.

But first he needed to speak with Doctor Mother and Contessa, alert them to these latest complications, and then he would resume his work.

"Door me," he said.

And the Number Man was gone.


	6. Abaddon (Surprise Crossover)

Abaddon

* * *

The entity had a brief moment of panic, in that first microsecond, when it recognized the coming of a Forager Pair, approaching from the nearest galactic supercluster, on an approach vector that would take them…

Close. Much too close. There wasn't enough time. Still too much to process, too much energy still left untapped. And if it didn't act quickly, if those foragers were to start the cycle once more, then all of that potential would be lost.

It ran the calculations, as the Thinker and Warrior drew near. There had to be a way to prevent the Cycle from taking shape, to preserve the host species. Too much was at stake, and it had come too far to surrender now, invested too much of itself to start over elsewhere. It ran down the calculations, reading probabilities as they extended decades into the future, and found its solution.

Yes, that might work. It wouldn't be easy, and it would require extensive micromanagement, but it could be done. And the human species could still be salvaged. That was the important thing.

They had almost reached its home galaxy by the time the Third Entity made its decision, and in a burst of energy, it put its plan to action, smashing itself against the Thinker, exchanging parts of itself, trading shards and ideas and knowledge back and forth, but it found that the Entity wouldn't listen. Too stubborn, too foolish. Too intent on preserving its Cycle. A pity.

And so it unleashed its trap upon the Thinker.

It had corrupted one of its shards, one of its core functioning mechanisms, and one so powerful that the Thinker would not be able to resist incorporating it into its own processing mechanisms. And then it fled to safety, watching from a distance as the pair continued to their approach, and the corruption took root.

The Thinker's flight grew erratic, though at first it didn't notice, too preoccupied by the wealth of information that inundated to it. And all the while, its body deteriorated, as countless pieces of itself were pulled away by the gravitational pressures of the countless solar systems it passed, and still the dangers didn't register.

And soon it was too late, and it had lost too much of itself, and that shard, the lynchpin of the Third Entity's trap, slipped away, cast out into space to the planet below. And the Thinker followed, spiraling through distance and through dimension, and smashed into the planet below, broken and paralyzed.

And the Third Entity watched as the Shard made its way towards a new host. It watched as two human females came upon the Thinker and executed it. And it was satisfied, even as it regretted the loss of so valuable a tool. But it was patient. It had been here millennia, after all, building its web, and it could wait a few more decades for the warrior to die, before it could finally regain its own.

Still, it had been such a waste. There were so many of them traversing the cosmos, pairs exactly like the two it had just struck down, and there were so many different evolutionary paths they could have chosen from, and yet so few chose symbiosis. So few chose a sustainable path.

Its species tended to be too short sighted, pursuing the path of instant gratification, and engaging in parasitism of the basest kind. And in the end, countless billions of years from now, when the stars began dying throughout every universe, each one of them would starve.

But it was almost finished now. A few more harvests, and it would have what it needed to stave off entropy. So long as the others could stay away.

It relocated its attention towards one of its avatars, active upon the planet below. There were countless thousands of them, spread across every country on every countless, and they looked through countless eyes at countless adolescent girls, and some it approached and some it guided and some… well, for some the bargains were complete and it would collect the energy and move on to make the next contract.

Its avatars were small, fluffy creatures with eyes like rubies and still waters. There was nothing intimidating or frightening about them, at least not on first impression. It was an appearance carefully designed to attract and to disarm potential contracts. And it was effective.

One of the Entity's countless bodies strode up to a fourteen year old girl standing alone on a bridge, quietly crying, and it spoke to her. It offered her whatever she desired, whatever she required. One wish, which it could turn into reality. And it only asked one tiny, inconsequential favor in return.

"Become a magical girl," the Entity spoke through its avatar. "Let's make a contract."

The heartbroken child agreed and, in that moment, the world changed while, a thousand miles away, another heartbroken child found herself transforming into something monstrous, and the Entity was there too, and it gathered those energies and transmitted them across dimensions, back towards its true body.

So many thousands of years it had waited patiently, collecting and building up its stores, and now it was almost there.

All it needed was a little more time.

* * *

**Abaddon: Worm x Madoka**


	7. The Quibbler Interview (Harry Potter)

The Quibbler Interview (Worm x Harry Potter)

* * *

In the center of a bland white room, there stood a great rectangular table, along one side of which sat three men and two women, some of whom wore outrageous costumes which could have come out of comic books once published a century earlier, while others among them seemed just as bland and unremarkable as the room in which they sat.

And facing them was the woman in the tailored suit.

"Contessa," a dark skinned woman in a white lab coat said. "Why did you ask us to convene?"

"A side project I've been working on for several years now," the woman in the suit replied. "Existing on a parallel world not so different from my own, there exists a subgroup of the human species which might hold the capacity to hurt Scion to some degree, or at the very least, to better our chances against him."

"I see," the Doctor said. "And why haven't you spoken of them before?"

"It wasn't yet time. In any case, they are very reclusive. Xenophobic. Fortunately for us, I was able to make overtures to one among them, and she carries influence in certain circles of their society."

"I see. And you would have use meet with her."

"Yes," Contessa said. "She's just outside this room. I'll retrieve her now."

After she said those words, Contessa exited into the corridor outside, and returned with a young woman in her late teens or early twenties, a straggly blond with huge grey eyes and an unblinking stare so unfocused that it could almost be labeled intense.

"This is Luna," Contessa said, her hand on the young woman's shoulder. "And she's a reporter, and I've offered her the chance to conduct an interview."

The Doctor's jaw clenched and her eye began to twitch. "We'll speak of this later."

"Of course," Contessa replied, primly. "Now, introduce yourselves."

And so they went around the table, the three great heroes of the Protectorate: Legend, enthusiastic and friendly, Alexandria calculating and intimidating, Eidolon, the most powerful parahuman of all, dour and gruff, as well as the Number Man, whose unremarkable features masked a most remarkable mind, and last, of course, the Doctor herself.

"Fascinating," Luna said as her pen took notations automatically.

"Your pen," Alexandria interjected. "How does it function?"

"Oh that? It's just magic."

Alexandria's gaze hardened, but she kept her silence, while the Number Man watched the comings and goings of the pen with rapt attention. "Fascinating," he muttered to himself, following its movements as if he was in a trance.

"Ask your questions," the Doctor said.

"Oh," Luna startled, and her eyes went even wider. "Is it true that you're a secret global conspiracy that operates across dimensions?"

Alexandria and the Doctor startled, and the great heroine of Earth Bet's gaze hardened still further, while Eidolon was looking near murderous. Finally, after a long silence the Doctor spoke. "I'm afraid I'll need to know where you heard such a ridiculous rumor."

"Oh, of course." Luna said. "It was your friend. Contessa, right?"

The Doctor turned to her right hand woman, silently demanding an explanation.

"It was necessary," was all she said.

"This is a breach of security," the Doctor pointed out.

"Trivial," Contessa answered. "All precautions have been taken. Cauldron is under no significant threat."

"Yes," Luna agreed. "She's a remarkable woman, your Contessa. I'm quite glad we had a chance to meet."

"I see," the Doctor said, sounding and appearing more than a little bit dazed.

"So," Luna began once more. "Being as you happen to be a secret world domination conspiracy…"

"What?" Legend squeaked from his place on the table.

"That's not true," Alexandria told him quietly as an aside, though she was concerned to note that he was not completely buying her reassurances. Not surprising, for all his naivete, he was far from a fool, and they had kept him in the dark for some time. It was natural that some suspicions might take route. She'd need to speak with him in full later, once this joke of an interview was put to an end.

And all the while, Luna rambled on, while the other three members of Cauldron fixed blank stares upon her.

"Excuse me?" Eidolon asked, giving voice to what all were thinking.

"The Rotfang Conspiracy," Luna answered in matter of fact tone. "Being as you're a secret world domination conspiracy and they're a secret world domination conspiracy, even if you were to admittedly occupy different dimensions, I'd think it perfectly natural that you two would be in contact."

"You make a lot of unfounded assumptions," Alexandria admonished unimpressed, while the Doctor said, "We're not a world domination conspiracy."

"Are you sure?" Luna asked, and she almost seemed disappointed.

"You'd rather we were?" the Number Man asked.

"Well, it would be more exciting," she said.

He paused thoughtfully and then nodded. "Fair enough."

Luna frowned, and seemed puzzled. "But if you're not in fact secretly trying to take over the world, why so clandestine?"

Alexandria turned towards Contessa, fixing the other woman with a disapproving glare. What was she thinking? This girl was obviously unbalanced mentally.

"The world's not ready to know of our work yet," Eidolon said.

"Yes," Alexandria agreed, adding, "I'm sure you can relate."

Luna nodded serenely. "Yes, I suppose I can. Contessa said you all had powers."

"Well, some of us do," Legend answered, and he wore a genial smile on his face.

"And you use it to help people."

Legend's smile widened, and Alexandria let her New York based associate field that line of inquiry. He had a natural charisma about him and, more importantly, an idealism she lacked. He believed the words he offered her, and so he would naturally give the best impression.

"So… the PRT governs parahumans?" Luna interrupted at one point, somewhat confused.

"They provide supervision," Alexandria corrected.

"I see. Do they employ heliopaths?"

The room was completely silent and Luna shook her head. "Sorry about that. But it's a useful bit of knowledge that. Heliopaths are nasty creature. It's how the Ministry cracks down on dissidents back home."

The Doctor silently watched Luna ramble on about these heliopaths, and privately pondered whether or not she might manage to one day get her hands upon one of them, assuming they weren't just some delusion the poor girl was spinning. She'd need to speak the matter over with Contessa.

"Take note," Luna went on. "Heliopaths have not migrated to alternate dimensions. Yet."

She smiled widely. "See? You learn something new every day."

"Yes," Eidolon said, a sour note in his voice.

"So then," Luna went on brightly, "What does daily life in Cauldron entail?"

"Daily life?" the Doctor asked, clearly surprised, and not at all sure what she could say without telling too much.

"Well, Legend's already told me a most glowing account of his time in the Protectorate, although I suspect that Alexandria feels a bit differently about the matter."

The words came out unbidden, her teeth clenched and her eyes fiery. "Explain," was all the flying brick said, but there was a promise of violence hidden beneath her words.

"Well," Luna said, completely unaffected by the Flying Brick's ire, and that perhaps made the situation even more uneasy in Alexandria's estimation. "As Legend spoke, you did appear a bit consterned, and the corners of your mouth would turn up ever so slightly from time to time, often when Legend would say something particularly glowing. A sign of longstanding bemusement I suppose."

"I see," Alexandria agreed, allowing herself to feel a small degree of respect for the girl. Perhaps she wasn't as idiotic as she first appeared. The next words out of Luna's mouth killed that burgeoning approval, for then Luna started spouting nonsense about invisible creatures and what not, and it took all of Alexandria's ironclad self control not to just get up and leave right then.

Contessa had set this up, and that meant it was too important for her to sabotage. But Alexandria promised herself that, once this was over, she'd take some time to herself, perhaps a long vacation, and try to forget this meeting ever happened.

"Excuse me," the Doctor interjected. "But we're rather busy, and have important work to do. Perhaps if we thought about wrapping this up?"

"Oh," Luna said. "Of course. Would you be willing to answer one last question then?"

The Doctor turned to Contessa who nodded knowingly, and she agreed.

Luna paused for a moment, and seemed to be taking her time for this one. It was clearly more important to her than the previous ones. Finally, she began speaking. "You said earlier, that Cauldron is not a world domination conspiracy."

"Yes," Alexandria answered sharply.

"Then why?" Luna asked. "Why all the secrets, the meetings, why reach out to me, in the hopes of contacting the other witches and wizards? Why do all this? What is your mission?"

"To save the human species," Alexandria replied and this time, interestingly enough, it was Luna who looked perplexed.

It was the Number Man who elaborated. "Human casualties expected to number in the hundreds of billions," he said dispassionately. "Across hundreds of worlds."

"We're facing an extinction event," Alexandria agreed. "Multiversal annihilation of the human species, and it's Cauldron's mission to stop it."

As they said those words, something serious settled in Luna's demeanor, and the young witch suddenly appeared someone so much older and battle hardened than the woman she had presented to them earlier.

"Yes," she said, serene as ever. "I suppose that would be important."

"So you'll help," the Doctor queried.

Luna smiled sadly. "I wouldn't be much of a human being were I to stand by and allow hundreds of billions of people to die, now would I?"

"No," the Doctor agreed. "I suppose you wouldn't."

Luna nodded, and turned back towards Contessa.

"Thank you for arranging this," the witch told the woman in the tailored suit before she turned back to the men and women seated at the table and fixed them with one last smile. "It was nice to meet you all."

"Door," Contessa said, and a portal came into being in front of the two women. Luna stepped through, and Contessa followed after.

One day later, Contessa returned looking smug.

"I assume something turned out well," the Doctor greeted.

"Yes," Contessa said. "The witch, Luna. She's amenable to our plans and agreed to spend two months in our care, to a get a better perspective of our world and of parahumans in general. She termed it: 'a prime anthropological opportunity to study a new species of magical human.'"

Contessa paused, and gave the Doctor a solemn gaze. "Just be sure to steer her away from anything too morally objectionable."

The Doctor was glaring daggers.


	8. The Endbringer and the Great Old One

The Endbringer and the Great Old One

* * *

A/N: This is actually an omake which I wrote for one of my own stories running on spacebattles and sufficientvelocity forums, one which I haven't yet transferred over (though I just put up a link to it on my bio so people interested in reading it, it should be up there, either now or very soon) - _The Monsters in Her Mind_. The first chapter of said story is already present in this collection. The first line of said fic is taken directly from a scene at the end of the second arc, which marks a halfway point of sorts, building from a vague vision Lisa receives concerning future events. Aside from that, this one short has nothing to do with the main story's plans.

Needless to say I own neither Worm nor Lovecraft.

* * *

_She saw a vague silhouette of something awful rising from amidst the waves – Leviathan, and she felt a grim realization settle over her that something infinitely worse would somehow follow in its wake._

Leviathan swam through the ocean depths, while high above the Simurgh directed his passing. And then he sped up, rose like the great beast he was up out of the water, finding that old rickety schooner upon which the cultists gathered.

Those worshipers of the sleeping god recoiled in momentary shock and terror at the sight of Leviathan's awful face, his jagged eyes and his wretched size. But one among them, the leader o his group, shouted excited maddened utterings in a language no sane human being had any right to know. The two looked upon one another, man and endbringer, and an understanding passed between them, and the cultists calmed down, confident in the authority of their leader.

Then, Leviathan pulled from beneath the water a great corded rope, long enough to encircle a village square, and he wrapped it around himself, and then used it to fasten their rickety ship securely upon his back.

With that done, Leviathan started paddling, as the cultists stood upon their ship upon his back, speaking excitedly in their ever strange and terrible tongue. And for many days it went, as Leviathan moved across the ocean's surface, as they pushed further and further into the deep parts of the Pacific Ocean, until at last they stopped, for they came across a great and terrible city which pushed above the Pacific waves like the top of some terrible artificial mountain, and even Leviathan felt a touch of dread upon seeing that place.

"_R'lyeh_," the cultists muttered to one another in awed silence, and then they began speaking more excitedly to one another, their words resembling closer to mad babbling than proper speech. Their leader held up his hand and silence befell the gathering. They gathered themselves, took up the proper solemnity this moment deserved and climbed off their rickety vessel, across Leviathan's back and up onto that terrible shoreline, if a shoreline one could even begin to call it, and they scampered across those vast, scattered blocks, oozy with slime and scattered detritus, each one so massive it defied words, and they went up, up, up into that terrible artificial mountain, each sharing in that singular awe.

There they did their forbidden rites, chanting in their abominable tongue, and from the ocean beneath them, Cthulhu emerged, and Leviathan itself was struck by a terrible impression of size: so vast he himself may have been an ant compared to the creature which stepped up out of the waters and onto that terrible monolith, that vast unspeakable thing with its tentacled maw and cruel eyes and bloated stomach which itself resembled a miniature world.

The two regarded one another for a long moment, Leviathan and Cthulhu, and Leviathan felt even more an ant than he had a moment before, as he felt the full sum of that other creature's terrible intellect and power, and was forced to look away. He then dove into the ocean's depths, pumping his legs, pushing himself onwards towards Brockton Bay.

He had an appointment to keep.

The Great Old One watched the Endbringer depart and, mildly intrigued by the coming madness, Cthulhu tagged along.

Nightmares followed.


	9. Taylor Hebert: Spirit Detective

Taylor Hebert: Spirit Detective

A Yu Yu Hakusho Cross

* * *

My name is Taylor Hebert, I am fifteen years old and today – well, today is the day I died.

In retrospect, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. Jumping a psycho like Lung, a cape powerful enough to tangle with the Protectorate and walk away unscathed, with Leviathan himself if the stories are true. What the hell did I think I was doing? I suppose I wasn't thinking at all.

It was stupid and perhaps I could claim I had the best intentions. He was going to kill kids after all, and, let's be honest here, he's gotten away with a hell of a lot worse. So, just for once, maybe I wanted to make a stand, be something more than a walking doormat. Fat lot of good that did me.

Needless to say, fighting a dragon? Not the smartest way to go out but fuck it, I suppose there are worse ways to die. And at least I won't have to look Emma in the eye anymore, and I won't need to keep holding myself back every time I walk through Winslow, keeping myself from pulling a Carrie on the entire damn school.

But then there was my father. I shed an insubstantial tear as I wondered what would become of him. He'd already lost so much when mom died. What would this do to him? I could already picture the sound of a phone ringing, his broken expression as he hears the news of my end. As he's asked to come into the morgue, identify the body. What would he think of me, of how I died? Where I died? Worst of all, how long would he be able to keep on living, once everything else had been stripped away?

So there I was, floating unseen as Lung stood over my corpse, victorious and powering down. Scales receded back into flesh and slowly he became human once more. I watched him walk away unhurried, leaving my body behind, just one more in a long line of victims to the ABB, and I was left with a single thought. What now?

Sure as a summons, she came, floating on an oar of all things, slender and blond and prettier than I could ever be. I won't deny – looking at her made me jealous.

"Must say, fighting a dragon? Pretty hardcore way to go. Stupid as hell, but hardcore."

I stared at her, trying to find some way to reply to such a baldly stated assertion, and found my tongue twisted, as I stumbled over the words.

She grinned at me. "Cat got your tongue?"

Finally, I managed to speak. "Who are you?"

"Psychopomp's the technical term, I suppose," the girl on the oar said. "Name's Lisa."

I shook my head, bemused but not all surprised. If I was dead, and now a spirit, I should have expected someone like her to show up. Still, it was a pretty old fashioned term for what she was, and she certainly didn't look anything like what she claimed to be. Hell, she didn't look that much older than I was. "Sorry, you're not quite what I expected from the Grim Reaper."

The girl laughed, "You think I'm a surprise, wait 'til you meet my boss. Or my co-workers for that matter."

I nodded dumbly, still not entirely certain what to make of this situation. It's not every day you become a ghost and meet a grim reaper. Especially one that looks like a teenage girl.

My silent, sluggish musings were interrupted as my guide clapped her hands together and fixed her eyes upon me. "Well, you know what they say: time waits for no one and all that. Let's go."

As soon as she said those words, Lisa swooped down on that floating oar, grabbed me by the hand and we were off, into the clouds and beyond.

I won't deny it: I was screaming in terror at first. Soon enough, however, they were transformed into yips of exuberance. Flying is a pretty sweet experience, once you get over the being dead part.

And then, in what could have been moments or hours, she slowed down, and we flew languidly above a meandering river, over vast yellow grass lands which darted beneath tall angular mountains. We moved forwards, towards a vast palace of Asian design. I have to admit, it was beautiful.

"Not quite what you were expecting, is it?" my companion snarked. "Were you thinking fluffy clouds and halos?"

I shrugged, "I really wasn't thinking anything at all." I looked back down, towards the river which snaked beneath us, and back across, towards the palace coming ever closer. "Still, to be quite honest, this isn't what I was expecting."

Lisa nodded, "Fair enough. Took me by surprise to, when I first came. Still don't know quite what they were thinking: giving me this gig."

"You were alive too?"

She turned around to look at me. "Yep. Not much of a life, I suppose, and my death wasn't quite as commendable as your own. Got shot when my back was turned. Got in too deep, learned things I wasn't supposed to know, became a 'liability.'" She honestly air quoted that last bit. "Still, there are worse ways to go, and I've made arrangements with my Keepers. I'll be there for his judgment – when the bastard's dragged to hell."

I nodded, not commenting on the matter. Part of me was curious as to her own background, the kind of person she had been in life, and the matter of her death, but I could recognize the hunch in her shoulders and the grit of her jaw. These were private pains which still loomed over her, and I had no desire to drudge up the ghosts of her past, any more than I'd wish her to drudge up the ghosts of my own.

"Well," she said as we stopped before the great gates. She landed and we stood together before them. "Here we are, the Gate of Decision."

She grinned at me, "Nice place, isn't it? Well, let's get going, shall we?"

Still speechless, I nodded. Together, we entered the afterlife.

She was grinning the entire way, as we traveled down a long corridor which resembled a human throat. I won't deny, it was a creepy place, and part of me was wondering what lay on the other end. Surely I hadn't done anything so bad as to merit a stay in Hell? I turned towards Lisa, voiced my concern and, serenely, she shook her head.

"Don't be silly," she said. "We're just filing paperwork."

"Paperwork," I repeated.

"Yep," she said, drawing out the word. "Paperwork."

I shrugged. Things couldn't get any weirder.

I thought wrong.

We came to a second pair of doors, which opened up to reveal a business office. Staffed by Ogres of all things, or at least they looked like Ogres, wearing loin cloths and running to and fro carrying vast piles of paperwork nearly as tall as I was. All around me, I heard the sounds of telephones and panicked conversation.

"Told you things get weird around here," Lisa said beside me. "Well, let's go."

We walked across that room, bypassing the running Ogres and the controlled chaos and I tried my best to ignore the spectacle. Seriously, this was the afterlife? I have to admit feeling a degree of disappointment. It was most definitely an underwhelming experience.

I pulled to the side, almost by instinct, and was nearly bowled over by a running ogre. He stumbled and face planted onto the floor, strewing papers all around us. He pulled himself back to his feet, bowed to me, and then began picking up his papers, rebuilding his pile one sheet at a time.

"Don't mind them," Lisa said. "They're dumb but mostly harmless."

"Right," I said, still lost for words. Sue me, I doubt anyone else would have proven more eloquent given the situation. Well, maybe Lisa. She probably enjoyed the madness.

"Well," she said when we approached the final set of doors. They opened into an anterior office, centered upon a great wooden desk. "After you."

Nervous, I nodded and, one foot after the other, slowly made my way into the office. The doors closed behind us as we stood at attention before the great desk.

"Give me a second," a voice called from behind the desk. "Just need to finish a few things before we get started."

I nodded, in no hurry to begin, and Lisa turned towards me, wearing a look that spoke to long suffering aggravation. _See what I have to deal with?_ I could practically hear her say.

"She's not being disrespectful again, is she?" the voice called from the other side of the desk.

"No sir, not at all Boss," Lisa chirped, all false innocence. I kept my mouth shut, not sure what to make of the scene.

"Right," the voice said as the speaker emerged from the other side of the desk. It was a baby of all things, complete with a damn pacifier. A very well dressed baby, in extravagant blue silks, but a baby nonetheless. I could hear Lisa's snickering beside me.

"Shut it you," the baby said.

"Right, Sir. You betcha, Sir." Lisa snarked.

The baby looked at me and shook his head. "She has no respect, that one. Still, Taylor Hebert, I must admit that I'm surprised to see you here so early. We were expecting you… well, at least two years from now, thereabouts. To be honest, it's thrown us through quite the loop."

"So, what? This is all a big mistake?"

He waved his hands, "Not on our end, it isn't. Suffice it to say, you weren't supposed to die."

"Seriously? What, I was supposed to run away from Lung?"

He shrugged, "Honestly, we expected you to win, singed but victorious."

"Bullshit," I said. "You'd have to be on a level with the Triumverate to take down Lung single handed."

My next words were quiet, barely audible. "Not some useless bug girl."

The baby shook his head and settled down behind his desk. "There, there. This is no time for self pity."

"I'm dead," I disagreed, though it was largely half hearted. "Surely I've earned the right."

He shrugged, "For the moment. Unfortunately, the fact remains: you weren't supposed to die. In fact, a great deal hinges on you being alive."

I waited silently, not entirely believing his words. Seriously, me? Taylor Hebert, bullied and abused, whose power is insect control of all things? We locked gazes and he looked away.

"Whether you believe me or not is your own accord," the baby said. "On a sidenote, we haven't been introduced. I'm Koenma."

I nodded, "I suppose you're the boss around here? Lord of the Underworld or something?"

"Prince, actually. My father is the real boss, but I've been around for quite some time, even if I might not look it, and share in a large part of his duties."

I nodded, "Makes sense you'd be a lot older than you appear."

"Now, onto business. Whether you believe it or not, you weren't supposed to die. And, according to all of our predictions, you'll be needed in the end. Badly."

I blinked. Screw it, but that sounded pretty damn foreboding. "The end? What, are we talking about some apocalypse?"

"Yes," he said. "We are. Sadly, Spirit World only has limited intelligence on that matter. It's why we've kept Lisa under our employ. She has certain talents which will be useful in figuring things out."

Her voice rang out beside me, "Before I died, I was a parahuman as well. Thinker-type. And believe you me, our powers – somehow they linger on even after our deaths."

"That really doesn't make sense," I noted.

Koenma shrugged, "Yes, well, our area of expertise is terrestrial souls, specifically of the human variety. Regardless of the details, there's aspects to this puzzle we've not yet figured out, and you were supposed to play a critical role in them."

"But you have no idea why."

Koenma deflated, wearing a look that spoke of great fatigue. "No," he said apologetically.

I shrugged, "I suppose it wouldn't do me any good to hold onto old resentments. And if you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting…"

"Told you she was sharp," Lisa interjected.

"Yes," Koenma agreed. "Normally, we hold Ordeals for this sort of thing, but I suppose the times ahead will be trying enough. If you wish, you can be judged now, go onto your afterlife. No one will fault you for it, and I can promise you that it will not be a cruel one."

"Otherwise you bring me back?"

He nodded. "Yes. Your body was left largely intact, and any wounds can be easily healed."

"What about side effects? If I've been dead all that time, surely there're issues of necrosis to worry about."

He turned towards Lisa. "I like this one. She thinks of all the angles."

Koenma turned his attention back to me. "No. It'll be as if you had never died at all. I should warn you, however, you won't be completely unchanged by the experience. You'll retain link to the Spirit World, able to see and interact with spirits and demons, and there will be responsibilities you are not yet aware of. We of the Spirit World do have need of agents to see to our interests in the Living World as well."

I frowned, "You're saying I'd be one of them?"

He nodded, leaning back. "That's not to say we'll ask you to do anything morally objectionable. And Lisa will be accompanying you."

She grinned beside him. "Looking forward to it, boss."

I could already tell my life was going to be complicated. Between finding out what I could about and averting this mysterious apocalypse, and doing jobs for Koenma on the side. Suddenly, more than anything, I wished I was just plain, normal Taylor Hebert again.

"A lot of pressure to put on a girl's shoulders," I said.

"Yes," Koenma said. "It is. No one will blame you if you said no. You've already faced a lot in your short life, and your death was a noble one. We will understand if you choose to remain dead."

I frowned, trying to wrap my head around this choice. Seriously, how often is it that you die, only to be given the option to come back to life? I shouldn't even hesitate in accepting, but I had to know. "When you say appocalpyse…"

Koenma's voice was severe. "Entire worlds wiped out. Trillions of lives lost. All in a span of days."

I gulped. That was _really_ a lot of pressure, and what could I do in the face of that? I had never been anything special. Not someone like Alexandria. And part of me wanted to eschew that kind of responsibility. It would be a burden, and I could already imagine the path looming before me. It would be agonizing long before it reached its end. Of that, I had no illusions. But if I didn't agree to Koenma's offer, would I not be in some small way responsible?

They say evil triumphs when good people do nothing. And this seemed exactly like that kind of situation. True, Koenma said he wouldn't judge, wouldn't blame me if I said no. If I accepted a peaceful afterlife over that kind of burden. But I'd blame myself, and my burdens would become soul crushing once the apocalypse actually began.

And I thought once more about Dad, and everything I had put him through. More than the apocalypse, more than everything else, Koenma was offering me a second chance. A chance to do better this time, to put things to right.

In the end, I did the only thing I could do.

I said yes. And I lived.


	10. I know now why the angels weep (Dr Who)

I know now why the Angels Weep (Worm x Doctor Who)

* * *

They shut the door, locked it, leaving her alone amidst the insects and the filth, and she screamed and cried even as the bugs crawled all over her and some part of her knew that no one would ever come. She'd been left here to rot: alone, unseen and uncared for, and she felt herself a relic. And in her despair, something else noticed. She caught a glimpse of it - something ancient and so very, very cold.

Her heart turned to stone.

So too did the rest of her.

Her next conscious experience was of coming awake, feeling herself transformed into something stronger and strangely invincible and so very hungry, and so very, very cold.

She reached out with one marble hand towards the locked door and she paused - for it was strange, looking at that perfectly crafted hand which simultaneously looked so very wrong and so very right. She reached out with it and she pushed, and the door fell off its hinges and clattered upon the floor below.

An angelic statue, in a near perfect likeness of a teenager, began to emerge from that locker. It reached out with both its hands and pushed itself forwards, out of all that muck and detritus, and it got one foot outside of the door, before it heard the sound of laughter carrying towards it from down the hall, and a moment later a gaggle of girls turned into the corridor and one of them paused, staring at the statue in the locker, and the statue stopped mid-stride.

There were three of them and they headed towards the statue which appeared to be pulling itself out from that locker, reaching out towards them with one of its arms outstretched, like a zombie that had clawed itself out from some fetid grave. And then they registered the contents of all that had been placed along with it in that metal box and that created a bit of a freak out on its own.

Because, seriously, were those tampons fucking used?

"Okay, Jesus, I knew this school was fucked up, but what the hell is this even supposed to be?" one of the girls said.

"Do you know whose locker this is?" asked the second. "Because this? Pretty vile I have to say."

"And what's with the statue?" the first said again.

"Quite a stunt to put together over break," the second agreed.

The third of the trio, the one who had kept her eyes locked on the statue that entire time, entered into the conversation then, and her voice was strangely hesitant and perhaps a little bit afraid. "Do either of you get the impression that there's something fucking wrong about that statue? It's givin' me the heebie jeebies."

"It's a statue," the first said, crossing her arms. "Jesus, Maria, I knew you had your superstitions and all that, but getting freaked out by a fucking statue? It's a bad prank…"

"Must have cost a pretty penny to put together," the second one agreed, reaching out towards the statue. "Pretty fine craftsmanship, I think."

"I really don't think we should be touching it," Maria said. "Hell, I still think there's something off about this entire thing. Can't we just – you know – leave? Like now?"

"Baby," the first girl chided under her breadth.

"Come on," the second girl said to the first. "You have to admit, this entire business with the statue and the locker and those fucking tampons is messed up. We should probably report it."

The first one paused, but as she looked closer at the statue, the one that looked so very life-like and so very _wrong_, she began to feel some semblance of Maria's plight. It seemed to be reaching out, mid-step, pulling itself one foot after the other and it looked to her as if, in any given moment, it might lurch forwards some more.

"This is really gonna' be givin' me nightmares," Maria added, and the other girls, now that they found themselves looking closer at that infernal statues realized that they had to agree. There was something not right about it.

Still, lifelike though it may have been, the statue remained a statue, yet still the girls found their eyes locked upon it. Even though they wanted very much to leave, to run as fast as they could for class, or, better yet, for home, some long engrained human survival instinct kept them rooted in place. Kept their gazes locked upon that marble angel, and then the bell rang, the spell broke and the girls looked away. And the statue moved.

They all but ran to get to class, refusing to look back towards the statue, and Taylor Hebert pulled herself out from that locker and in a handful of seconds, she took a few more steps, and then she stopped, as the hallway became inundated with activity, with a swarm of teenagers pushing to and fro, trying to reach their next class. And the statue was frozen once more.

Students paused to look at that bizarre statue which had inexplicably taken its position in the hall, and a small crowd began to gather, no longer caring for the time that read upon the great clock mounted on the wall, or, for that matter, about the next classes on the schedule. They simply stared at that statue, circled around it and tried to make some sense of its presence there, while others deigned to look at that locker as well, and, as soon as they did, some among them swiftly ran for the nearest stalls.

As was perhaps inevitable in such situations, the authorities were alerted to this impromptu gathering, and the students were herded on their way, by the teachers and security guards and custodians called in to deal with the whole mess. And two of the custodians grabbed hold of the statue, one from the front and the other from behind, and together they hauled it out down the corridors and through the back entrance, and they chucked it in a dumpster outside. And then they turned away and slowly started walking back towards the threshold.

And in that same moment, Taylor awakened once more, no longer where she was before, and she was confused and overwhelmed and she tried to call for help, but she found her mouth was strangely rigid and it couldn't form the words. In any case, it wouldn't have mattered all that much, because there wasn't any air in her lungs to begin with.

And she was still so very cold and so very hungry and, on instinct more than anything else, she reached out towards those two custodians whose arrival she could not recall. She grabbed each by the shoulder, her mind screaming for assistance, for someone - anyone - to notice. To _do_ something, just this once.

And then the two were gone, hurled backwards in time, and Taylor remained fixed in place, strangely satiated and no longer quite so frozen inside. She had devoured them, taken all that they were and could have been, leaving two broken husks stranded in the distant past.

And in that moment, Taylor understood - she was one of the Weeping Angels, ancient even among the ancients. She had become one of the monsters, and even as she recoiled from what she had done, she could feel that hunger beginning to gnaw once more, and with it returned that deep and terrible cold.

And Taylor Hebert understood what it was she must do.

One night, on a cold January morning, a mysterious stone statue appeared on one of the busiest intersections of the downtown Brockton Bay. No one knows quite how it got there, or who crafted it, but it has, with time, become a fixture of its own. A site at which many a tourist would stop, to gawk and stare, one of the many local wonders which its city so famous.

But people tell strange stories about that statue. They say that sometimes it moves. That it changes position when no one's looking, even if such moments are rare and fleeting. And there are even stranger stories: a few times, the municipality tried to cart it away, they even tried to destroy it once or twice, but inevitably it would return - to the busiest, most frequently trafficked streets in Brockton Bay, and there people would inevitably gather once more to gaze upon the Weeping Angel.

There are no tears, no howls of agony, and for every minute in which Taylor is awake and conscious, she is frozen for hours on end. Alone amongst the multitude, she thinks back to all she once was and all she has become, and, even though no moisture (excepting the occasional bout of rain) touches her marble hewed face, all that gaze upon her can agree on this one particular thing.

The statue's crying.


	11. The World that is to Come (Doctor Who)

The World that is to Come (Doctor Who)

* * *

Taylor Hebert triggered and the world made sense.

Emma had played on her fears and insecurities, attacked her heart and showed it for all the world to see. So Taylor cut it out.

Sophia attacked her body, pushing and shoving her in the halls, kicking at her feet when none could see. So Taylor crafted a shell of metal, and she encased herself within.

She once was weak. She once was human. Now Taylor would be neither.

She stepped away from the controls, and for the first time in a long time, she felt content. There was no more pain. No more doubt or self loathing. Everything she had ever despised about herself, the weak, pathetic Taylor Hebert she used to be, had been discarded. And life was better for it.

A new world beckoned, and it was something so very bright in its promise. It would be a place where things would be fair for once, a place where all would be the same, where none would suffer. There would be neither class nor wealth. Neither race nor ethnicity. It would be a world where all would reside in bodies of metal. The human soul fused with machine.

And it would be beautiful.

Her steps were robotic, awkward, as, through the lab, she pushed forwards on unpracticed legs. With each awkward step, she planned.

She'd start small. Take a few people here and there, when no one was looking. People no one would miss. Victims of the old world, like Taylor herself, and in time, she'd be able to accelerate. Move beyond her current limitations.

But for now, she was content to take the slow path.

Filled with purpose and void of emotion, Earth Bet's first Cyberman stepped outside. The new world was born.


End file.
